Drennan Barnsley Blacks have won the Division One National, which was held on the River Trent at the weekend!
The talented outfit managed to win by the narrowest of margins, however, as their 336-point tally was just a single point ahead of the Shakespeare Superteam! That almost matches a similar outcome at the recent Angling Trust Winter League Final, where they also pipped Daiwa Dorking by one point!
Forty-two teams of 10 anglers fished the premiership event, which was split between the tidal and non-tidal stretches of the River Trent running through Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire. Drennan Barnsley also had the best combined weight with 52.31kg.
Squad captain Glenn Lawrence was elated with the result. “It must have something to do with our change in sponsor!” He joked. “We have put a lot of time into practising on the Trent and had a very rough team plan in place. On the lower stretches we concentrated on float tactics to suit the tidal conditions. We had some excellent knowledge and experience on the ‘normal’ non-tidal sections, so we left it up to each angler to fish their peg as they saw fit.
“We had two standout performances. The first has to be Ian Bowman, who managed to win C Section with 7kg from an unfancied peg on Newark Dyke. The other is Dave Brooks, who managed 2.5kg from a horrendous peg at Winthorpe to score 28 points.
“The icing on the cake was the announcement just before the official results that the winners will represent England in next year’s World Club Champs!”
Barnsley now have the honour of representing England in the World Club Championship next year in Slovakia. They will be going all out for a medal after finishing 4th overall in this year’s World Club Championship in Slovenia. The venue will once again be a fast-paced river with flat float tactics being key. It is apparently a very prolific venue with lots of small vimba, barbel and bream to target.
Result
1st Barnsley & District 336 points
2nd Shakespeare Superteam 335
3rd Daiwa Dorking 316
4th Kamasan Starlets 276
5th Daiwa Doncaster AA 269